John Butcher

Born in Brighton and living in London, John Butcher is a saxophonist whose work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multi tracked pieces and explorations with feedback, unusual acoustics and non-concert locations. He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with a sense of place. Resonant Spaces, for example, is a collection of performances recorded during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.

Butcher originally studied Physics, but after publishing a PH.D (1982) on quantum chromodynamics he left academia and took off with music. He has since collaborated with hundreds of artists, some for many decades, including Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévost, Angharad Davies, John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Okkyung Lee, Andy Moor, Sophie Agnel, Christian Marclay, Pat Thomas, Phil Minton, Rhodri Davies, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, John Russell, Chris Corsano, Steve Beresford, Ståle Liavik Solberg, and Matthew Shipp.

Additionally he values occasional encounters - with large groups ranging from the WDR Sinfonieorchester (as soloist), and the 20+ piece EX Orkest to duos with Akio Suzuki, Liz Allbee, Keiji Haino, Isabelle Duthois, David Toop, Mariam Rezaei, Fred Frith and Joe McPhee.

Recent compositions include “Fluid Fixations” (an hcmf commission), “Penny Wands” for Futurist Intonarumori, “Good Liquor…” for the London Sinfonietta and “Tarab Cuts” (shortlisted for a British Composer’s Award).

"Over 40 years of sustained performance and publishing, English saxophonist, improvisor and composer John Butcher has shaped much of what soprano and tenor saxophone can do, and what their roles and vocabulary in improvised music might be. I’ve always heard Butcher’s playing as a kind of nose-to-tail saxophony, where the whole instrument from reed-tip to brim of bell is available, accessible and articulate. Few other saxophonists slice as sharply back into the physical history, material (and physics) of the instrument, across its near 200 year history. When Hector Berlioz wrote of his friend Adolphe Sax’s then fresh invention, “the varied beauty of its accent, sometimes serious, sometimes calm, sometimes impassioned, dreamy or melancholic, or vague”, he could have been imagining Butcher's distinctively clean but complex, enquiring soundworld." WIRE - October 2024. The Primer by Seymour Wright

http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk

Thomas Lehn

Schooled both as a concert pianist playing contemporary repertoire and as a recording technician, Thomas Lehn deploys a huge musicality through his unique chosen outlet, the analogue synthesiser. This instrument allows him extremely close and immediate contact with all aspects of sound modification - a vast gamut of living electronic sound produced with unmatched speed and fluency. Thomas Lehn simply represents a coming-of-age of electronic sound production in the domain of concert performance that sets a standard for the entire medium. He is therefore unsurprisingly an essential member of many of the most active and significant projects in this international and dynamic scene.

Matthew Shipp

Steeped in the history of the jazz avant-garde yet with an unmistakeably individual voice, Matthew Shipp has established himself as one of the most important figures in American creative music today. Combining an uncompromising personal language with an exemplary eclecticism, Shipp has worked with an astonishing array of musicians, including Roscoe Mitchell, David S. Ware, Antipop Consortium, William Parker, Mat Maneri, Spring Heel Jack, J Spaceman, Evan Parker, and Nate Wooley.

“Shipp’s approach to the keyboard is a study of tone, decay, muscle, and grace . . . round filigree unfolding amid monumental bell-like clangs . . . rangy attack that volleys from dense clusters that nearly distort themselves to barely perceptible skims of the keyboard . . . stark and insistent and utterly massive.” – Clifford Allen, Tiny Mix Tapes